‘How Could This Possibly Happen in the United States?’ Lawyer for Fired Quitman Police Captain Asks 

SHERMAN — A lawyer for former Quitman police captain Terry Bevill asked a federal jury Wednesday to award her client at least $33 million — and then some — for his firing and arrest after he signed an affidavit in 2017 saying he didn’t think a friend could get a fair trial in Wood County in East Texas.

In her closing argument on the eighth day of trial of a wrongful-termination suit filed by Bevill,  Laura Benitez Geisler said her client had done nothing but exercise his constitutional right to free speech. “And he paid for it. He paid dearly for it. … How could this possibly happen in the United States?”